Travel Book for April 2009
Travelling Europe by Craig Martin. Chapter 1: How can I research my trip?
The traditional mix of reading, talking and time. Let’s assume you have chosen your primary destinations and are looking for information on cities,accommodation and transport between them.
Guidebooks
A dead‐tree guidebook is still one of the best starting places for any trip research. They concisely highlight places to see and to avoid, local pleasures and dangers, and give basic details on transport options and accommodation. The disadvantages of price and weight are outweighed by the advantage of ubiquitous use. At one in the morning I am a little hesitant about firing up my laptop to check my digital city map especially when in a dingy Romanian trainstation, but pulling out a guidebook won’t cause too many problems.
Don’t idolise your guidebook. If there are sections you will not use when you are travelling, rip them out to save weight. With a multi‐country guidebook, it is worth ripping out the sections pertaining to the countries you are visiting. Staple or bind them individually and just take the sections you need on your trip. You can restore these sections to the guidebook later and you will stillhave all the information you bought.
Be aware that guidebooks are normally researched about 12‐24 months before they go to print. This is a long time for hostels, bars and restaurants to godownhill while being guaranteed a steady flow of guidebook‐toting travellers.
Friends
Guidebooks are a good place to start, but you don’t want to stop there. If you know anybody who has travelled where you are going, then invite them out for a drink and get talking. Take a notebook or — even better — scribble frantically over your newly bought guidebook. It will see worse treatment bythe time you have finished with it.
If you don’t have any friends (that have travelled, obviously) then internet forums, blogs and wikis are going to fill the knowledge gap. While guidebooks might be out‐of‐date, they are usually carefully researched. Internet resources are more subjective, seldom fact‐checked and — in some cases — blatantlywrong. That is what makes research fun.
Internet
Here are a few internet resources that can help you supplement and update your guidebook as well as put current prices into your budget. It is importantto check more than one source, especially to compare prices and reviews.
Alongside their paper publishing business, Lonely Planet have recently started selling book chapters as PDFs — even giving some away. If you feel a certain distaste at the idea of cutting relevant sections out of your guidebooks, this isa perfect way to pick and choose important information.
Add to that the most popular online guidebook, Wikitravel, where anyone can add and amend details of a particular area, country or city. Consider givingback to the community by adding your finds.
For a personal touch, try searching blogs using a tool such as Google’s blogsearch. Sifting through the information here will allow you to follow in others’ footsteps while discovering all sorts of practical minutiae. You will alsofind out far too much about other people’s drinking habits.
Travel forums are a great place to read through other people’s questions and ask your own. Gumtree and the Thorn Tree are the most populous forums —so you have the best chance of finding answers there.
Don’t neglect iTunes as a place to search for information on your destinations. There are several individuals and companies offering free video tours and audio guides through the iTunes podcast store. The Amateur Traveler is a popular interview‐based travel podcast which sometimes features European locations. There are also niche podcasts which focus on particular places, such as Notes from Spain, Irish Fireside, Italy Travel Podcast and Budacast (aboutBudapest).
Specific information on researching accommodation, transport, and food options can be found in the relevant sections.
Travelling Europe by Craig Martin is published by Indie Travel Guides (Audio Book or E‐book; US$5.95 or US$9.95 for both). It is available through indietravelguides.com and readers can get a US$1 discount until the end of April by using the code: StChris
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